Stellar Trends & Insights Report: August 2018

Join us to discover the latest trends across Australian industry and customer experience. In this issue: the new digital bank expected to enter the Australian market, gathering travel insights beyond traditional means, and Americans ready to embrace AI for banking.

The Stellar Trends & Insights Report keeps us at the cutting edge of trends in our industry and in customer experience. It kicks off internal conversations at Stellar about how our clients might be impacted and how we can make improvements to our business to navigate change.

Look out for the Stellar Trends & Insights Report every month on our blog.

Seconds ticking towards digital bank launch

A digital bank is expecting to enter the Australian market in early 2019

A start-up company called 86 400 aims to enter the Australian market as a mobile digital bank. The company name is taken from the number of seconds in a day. 86 400 is targeting to operate from early 2019 after it obtains a full retail banking licence from the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority. The bank is selling itself to customers as a company that is “technology-led from the start” and based around the smartphone. Payments company Cuscal owns a 100% stake in 86 400 but the company is said to be looking for other investors with a target to raise AU$250m in three years. The new bank’s app will be available on iOS and Android at launch.

The idea of a digital only “neobank” is still fairly early in development, and it’s good to see it being explored in Australia.

Travelling new paths to gain insights

Australian trade authority explores opportunity for overhaul of domestic and international traveller surveys

The Australian federal government’s authority on trade and investment, AusTrade, is exploring opportunities to gather data from banking, telco and social media to improve its surveying processes for international and domestic travellers. It is going to tender from January next year to explore digital ways to replace the current 40,000 face-to-face and 120,000 phone-based surveys that are done each year. Providers will be required to abide by the Privacy Act.

This sounds like an innovative way to source traveller information and identify potential improvements to tourism, although the extent of monitoring and targeting of information will need to be done in a way that gives travellers peace of mind on which information will be shared.

Americans ready to embrace AI for banking

US survey shows people would be willing to work with AI that offers a human touch for their banking

A recent survey of 1,000 US consumers by Capital One and Wakefield Research found that 82% of respondents believe an AI assistant would be helpful in a financial task, and 77% would want an AI assistant to have a unique (and human-like) personality. Interestingly, approximately 56% said that they would feel more comfortable talking to an AI assistant about topics that might be quite personal like health (29%), love (31%), and money (30%).

Several industries including airlines and retailers have embraced chatbots – it’s now coming to banking at a greater scale.

Want to learn more about Stellar?

About The Author

Jonathon is Stellar’s Corporate Strategy Manager, tasked with coordinating our strategic planning process. He encourages a culture of strategic insight through communicating our strategic vision across the business, leading research into customer experience and technology trends, and developing our insights across industries and products.

He’s passionate about seeing Stellar get closer to its 2020 vision through progressing our strategic initiatives – and there’s plenty of time for him to think over it while he’s training for his next half marathon.

Read More​

Traditional outbound is shedding its bothersome reputation and making way for proactive outbound. Proactive outbound gives you a way to surprise and delight your customers, reaching out to them when and how it suits them. Improve your customer experience and create true brand advocates.

Stellar is proud to announce that it has been named the Contact Centre Outsourcing Service Provider of the Year in the 2015 Frost & Sullivan Australia Excellence Awards. This marks the first time a company has received this award for four consecutive years.